


Days Are Where We Live

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: The Hour
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Interracial Relationship, London, Male-Female Friendship, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Period-Typical Racism, Post-Canon, Post-Series, Tea, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 16:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13391265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: London, 1962. Freddie and Sissy go for a walk; misadventures ensue.





	Days Are Where We Live

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kivrin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kivrin/gifts).



> Even though it seems probable that Freddie's house might have suffered in the Notting Hill riots of '58, I am very attached to the idea of Freddie and Bel living in the same house as Cissy and Sey, so this fic takes as its premise that they do.

“Freddie,” says Sissy, and her voice breaks, “don’t _talk_.”

He gestures insistently with one hand. “Basin!” It’s forced out between clenched teeth; it hardly counts as talking. She reaches him the bowl, and he spits blood into it.

“Oh, _Freddie_.”

Eyes closed, he shakes his head; she’s not sure whether it’s meant as a promise that he’ll obey, for once, and keep silent — for once! — or an attempt to deny the necessity for her concern.

“Freddie,” says Sissy again, wringing out her dishcloth, “what were you thinking?” One long-fingered hand is turned palm upwards, in a gesture of ambivalence, or a plea for understanding. “I’m doing your knuckles next,” says Sissy; “don’t think I’m not. Hold still.”

***

They had been turning into the Brondesbury Road when it happened.

“Oi!” said the first young man, “you going to let your missus do that to you?” Sissy, holding Stevie’s hand, had watched Freddie’s hands go white-knuckled on the bar of the pram. She had kept walking, ducking her head a little lower, pulling her son a little closer.

“Don’t blame the lady, Ed,” said the second. “She wants something that looks like a man, even if it’s not quite one.” This time Freddie stopped.

“Don’t,” whispered Sissy. “We can just walk by them. We can just let it go.” Freddie had nodded, tight-lipped, trembling. And then the two youths had thrown the first stone. 

Before she quite knew what was happening, Sissy found herself barricaded behind the pram. Then Freddie was pressing Stevie into the crook of her arm, swinging Maud out of the pram and tucking her against Sissy’s other shoulder.

“Run,” he said. And, because it was Freddie, and because she was responsible for their children, Sissy obeyed. 

It had taken too long to make the constable understand. The basic imperative — _oh come quick, come quick_ — was simple enough. And trained as she was in a newsroom, Sissy tended to the view that essentials only should be sufficient to the officer of the law: two men on one, and the one half-blind, half-lame. But the officer, in his scrupulosity and his naïveté, wanted details, and _My husband is a Black man; strangers have become violent in the conviction that I have betrayed my race by cuckolding my best friend_ was difficult to convey on the run while keeping track of two small children.

***

Freddie was enjoying himself. After the first stone, which missed him, and the second, which landed between his shoulder-blades, he went in with his arms flailing like a windmill. His uneven gait added, he liked to think, an additional element of surprise. And once he had brought them both down with him, he knew where they were. The one on his back landed a dizzying left hook to his jaw; that couldn’t be helped. 

“You don’t know what you’re getting into, mate,” panted the one beneath him.

“I’ve seen worse,” said Freddie, and broke the man’s nose. A fist connected with his temple.

“Apologize to the lady,” demanded Freddie, between clenched teeth, and was yanked back into a chokehold.

“Who’ll make me?” hissed the man on his back. The one with the broken nose brought his knee up, and for a moment Freddie had neither breath nor thought.

“I will,” he gasped at last, and jack-knifed in his assailant’s hold. His elbow made contact with the pavement — another dizzying shock of pain. “Bloody _amateurs_ ,” said Freddie, with scorn. His unbruised elbow was driven into the throat of the man on the ground, and that left him with just one. Just one, but that one with his hands on his throat, and his weight bearing down, and Freddie’s vision swam, and his breath came hot under his ribs, and fear squeezed his lungs, and then the policeman’s whistle sounded like the archangel’s trump.

“Oi!” bellowed a distant voice, and Freddie’s closed fist connected with his assailant’s ear, and then there were running footsteps, and he was trembling and exhausted and triumphant.

“The kiddies shouldn’t see this, ma'am,” said the same voice of authority, closer now, and Freddie tried to bring his breathing under control. The constable’s boots came closer, stopped.

“Make him,” he said, as clearly as he could manage, “apologize to the lady.”

“Right,” said the constable. “I’m arresting you for breach of the peace…” Freddie himself was allowed to lie undisturbed on the pavement. A murmur of voices — authoritative and sullen — and then Sissy’s answering self-assertion seemed to indicate that his condition had been met, however reluctantly. Other boots came, and went.

“Am I going to be let off on self defense?” It still seemed too much trouble to move.

“Do you need an ambulance, sir?”

“ _Not_ what I asked,” said Freddie, and tried to sit up, which turned out to be a mistake.

“My husband’s a doctor.” Sissy to the rescue. “We’ll look after him. Just — I don’t suppose we could get a lift home?”

“Consider it done, ma’am.”

So they went home in state. Maud had begun to cry, and Stevie in sympathy with her, but Maud was young enough to be soothed against Freddie’s chest, young enough to accept even a bloodied hand as comfort, and Stevie subsided in turn, though an occasional whimper from his side of the police car suggested that his distress might be longer lived.

“Sorry,” said Freddie.

“Don’t,” said Sissy, and that was the end of that conversation.

***

“I don’t know what Bel will say when she sees you,” observes Sissy. She does not even try for nonchalance.

“Mm.” Freddie rests his head against the back of the sofa. It is very pleasant, just now, not to have to open his eyes. “Are the children still asleep?”

“They are.”

“Well then.” His voice is slurring, but it doesn’t seem to matter; Sissy will hardly upbraid him for it. “We’ve done our duty. Walks… naps… the Empire may crumble but — ” He is seized, suddenly, by a convulsive shiver that prevents him from completing his sentence.

“Oh, Freddie,” says Sissy, “you really are hopeless.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t mean that.” There are tears in her voice, and he forces his eyes open, forces himself to look down at her.

“Sissy.” He places one bruised hand under her chin. “Sissy, look at me. Please don’t — you know I wouldn’t do anything to put you at risk.” He tilts his head stiffly towards the bedroom. “Or them. God, Sissy, I’d never…” He tries to keep his teeth from chattering. “I only did it,” he says gravely, “because I knew you could get hurt. That Stevie could get hurt.” She is still weeping, her tears dropping steadily onto her bright print dress, onto the dishcloth that is soiled with his blood. “I wasn’t worried about Maud; that pram could withstand a nuclear bomb.”

She gives a laugh that is not quite a sob, wipes at her face with both hands.

“It was bound to happen eventually,” says Freddie, more softly. She nods, and takes a deep breath, and meets his eyes, though her own are still brimming with tears.

“Freddie,” says Sissy, “I know you won’t let me say this as often as I should, so let me say it this once, at least: thank you.”

He smiles, and the pain of doing so is nothing against the warmth blooming in his chest. “Any time,” says Freddie. “Pleasure,” he adds, with mock formality. “You know I wouldn’t miss our walks.” She nods, and in part because she looks as though she might be going to cry again, he adds, in hopeful tones: “Any chance of a cup of tea?”

“There might be,” says Sissy, in a voice very like her ordinary one. She gets lightly to her feet, steadying herself against the sofa. He allows himself to close his eyes again, but before Sissy departs for the kitchen, he feels a kiss against his forehead, light as imagination.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from "Days," by Philip Larkin: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48410/days-56d229a0c0c33 Thanks to @kivrin for providing the impetus to finally flesh this particular headcanon out.


End file.
